Comments on: Can Science Provide Political Answers?

By: Pangloss

Pangloss — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 20:43:10 +0000

Thanks for the comments! I am looking for quotes and bolds and stuff, and also trying to figure out how to embed the video right here so you don’t have to follow a link, and if I can figure those things out I’ll come back and fix these early posts.

I agree with the battleground comment — even though I have skepticism about the human causation issue, I agree this is a battle that needs to be fought, it needs to be fought right now, and it needs to be won. As you say, the stakes could not be more clear.

But I am concerned about the idea of using science as a tool of propaganda. I agree with the conclusion from Hulme that you posted, but I thought her comments about scientists misusing science to impact policy equally applied to her own position — she was being blatantly hypocritical. If the science is correct, then I don’t NEED or WANT propaganda. I want either the policy to change because people see the truth and WANT it corrected, or I do not want the policy to change at ALL — loss of freedom can save the world, but is the world then worth living in?

By: iNow

iNow — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 01:46:48 +0000

Sorry for the format. I guess php tags don’t work in wordpress… drat. :doh:

By: iNow

iNow — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 01:46:06 +0000

Interesting you should post this video.

I read this about a month ago, and it strikes a chord with me:

http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/?p=1469
[quote]Now in similar vein, ‘post-normal’ science deconstructs scientific empiricism and rationalism and detaches science from truth. In other words, where science fails to support an ideology, the absolute and overriding imperative of putting that ideology into practice means that science has to suspend its very essence as a truth-seeking activity and instead perpetrate lies. That is the inescapable implication of Hulme’s position. To support the bogus claim that we face the imminent collapse of civilisation from global warming, science itself has to be reconceptualised as an instrument of propaganda and justified by mendacious and obfuscatory post-modernist jargon. Hulme concludes:

[indent]Climate change is too important to be left to scientists - least of all the normal ones.[/indent]

So the true battleground has now been illuminated for us. The real fight is between scientists who believe in empirical observation and the truth, and ‘post-normal’ scientists who believe in ideology and lies. It’s a battle between Enlightenment values of rationality and those who wish to return us to a pre-rational era where thought was controlled and truth was a heresy. The stakes could not have been delineated more clearly. [/quote]